


Hell is Empty & All the Devils are Here

by Venstar



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Demons, Alternate Universe - Priests, Implied/Referenced Dubious Consent, M/M, but not like OH MY GOD THAT'S SUPER DUBIOUS WHAT IS THIS I CAN'T DO IT. it's more like spell related
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-25
Updated: 2018-01-25
Packaged: 2019-03-06 20:13:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13418793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Venstar/pseuds/Venstar
Summary: The demon came into the holy being’s life at just the right moment, when all hope was lost, light was fading, the darkness was taking over, and a prayer was made.  You would have thought at that moment, that very moment of weakness, the demon would have opened his arms and happily devoured that soul, as demons are wont to do.  Instead, a binding and a bargain, was made.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AmeresLare](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmeresLare/gifts).



> for the 2017-2018 00Qrbb. I really wanted to try my lighthearted style against AmeresLare's intriguing art. also people, i don't religion so...*magic wiggly fingers* beta'd by @opalescentgold & @Linorien ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

 

There had always been a war going on between the realms above and below.  Two armies fighting for one purpose: survival.  Warrior priests held the front for the church above, standing steadfast in the face of perceived evil that came from below.  Each defending what was theirs by divine right.  This war had been fought for a millenia and it was now crossing over into the new world.  Times had changed, weapons had changed, but still the fights took place.

It shouldn’t have worked but somehow, it did.  They shouldn’t have been friends, much less found a quantum of solace in each other.  They should have been enemies.  A demon and a holy being, although the demon would argue that there was nothing holy about that one beloved being. 

The demon came into the holy being’s life at just the right moment, when all hope was lost; light was fading, the darkness was taking over, and a prayer was made.  You would have thought at that moment, that very moment of weakness, the demon would have opened his arms and happily devoured that soul, as demons are wont to do.  Instead, a binding and a bargain was made.

Some would have said that it was a fit of mental illness; others would say that it was an unfortunately stressful Easter, a period of resurrection, that caused a priest to lock his office and drink what was left of the sacramental wine.  And seeing that it was a large parish that required a case ordered every six months and it was only month two of the new order...that priest...got very drunk on very cheap wine. 

Little did they know the real reason.  Blood had been spilt, an innocent lost, collateral damage again in his line of work.  To defend was to destroy in the name of all that was Holy, and so, Bond destroyed.  He laid siege to the nest of demons and then he laid siege to the sacramental wine.  Drowning his memories in a boozy layer of fermented grapes.  It wasn’t strong enough to silence his own inner demons.

Bond didn’t even notify Bishop M of the innocent bodies strewn along the altar.  Accidental victims in this religious war, not the first and certainly not the last.  Let M clean up this God awful mess.  Their methods were crude and outdated.  Cover up, rather than reveal.

“What is it all for!?”  Bond yelled in his mind-numbingly drunk state to the blurry ceiling above him, and nothing answered.  “What is it all for?”  Bond asked the floor beneath his feet, where all his troubles lay.  He smashed a bottle half full of wine down.  “What is it all for?  What is this blood spilt for, what is my blood spilt for.  Why?  Why, why, why?  I would do anything, give anything.  To stop it.”  Wine and his tears soaked into the carpet.  “I would, to stop it.”

The head of the altar guild found the sacristy broken into, the case demolished, and the wine bottles smashed to smithereens.  The trail of broken glass led to the priest’s door; it was slightly ajar, and when the head of the altar guild pushed it open, his jaw dropped over what he saw.   The floor was littered with broken bottles and the carpet was soaked in red liquid from bottles that had been full at the time and hadn’t  make it into the priest's stomach.  One full bottle had been left unopened by the priest’s nameplate with a sloppily written note taped to its neck.:  _ ‘For this Sunday.  Get a substitute priest, enjoy life.  J.B.’ _

It would be months before the priest was seen again. 

And when he did appear in the dilapidated corridors and back offices that were hidden in the St Paul’s Cathedral where the Bishop of London could pretend they didn’t exist, he was a red-eyed, grey and grim figure.

Bishop M, whose name was too long and complicated for anyone on God’s green earth to pronounce, much less remember, refrained from spending the resources needed to find this priest.  It hadn’t been the first time this man had disappeared when his personal demons had caught up to him; however, this was the first time that the priest had stayed away so long.  Theirs was a ‘sensitive’ division of the cloth.  Hardly acknowledged and rarely funded.  It was difficult to find and keep good men within their ranks.  Warrior priests were not as abundant as they had once been.  Too many lives lost in their delicate battlefield.  

They had all fallen.  M didn’t care what the old words said; he cared that he had been left in charge of this small, forgotten division that was the only protection left.  He couldn’t afford to lose anyone else from his ranks.  James Bond had been a tortured soul when he had come to them and nothing, not even the results of the work he had done, had healed it.  It was as if a part of him was missing.

M had looked with some longing at his long suffering second in command, the Reverend Bill Tanner, but that gentleman had just raised his shoulders and given a mighty sigh.  Well, he wasn’t going to be any help.  He had considered his newest secretary, but Ms Eve Moneypenny had merely glared at him over her laptop, the light from the screen giving her face an unholy appearance.  Her typing had slowed, and M had felt as if she were stabbing tiny daggers into his body.  Well, help wasn’t going to come from that end.  No one was crazy enough to go after that lost soul. 

M felt a modicum of relief when the ghostly shell that was left of James Bond finally stood before him.  Bond was painted with the most depressing shades of colours.  Even though the crafty bastard had somehow managed to acquire a tan that indicated he had spent time in the sun, a sort of greyness underlied the colour, especially around his eyes and mouth.  His once bright blond hair was riddled with streaks of grey, and his beard that he had grown while away was peppered with the same grey and bits of red.  Eyes that had once made M think of foreign oceans and crisp white sand were now faded and dull...a storm on a sea of pain.  His clothing wasn’t much better.  Rather than the crisp black and white of his office, Bond was wearing well worn, almost raggedy looking travel clothing.   

They stood at sort of an impasse.  M not knowing what to say to this older man, older in ways that M would ever see and Bond not wanting to explain what had set him off.  M decided that it was best to address the most important issue that both of them could agree or disagree on.  

“Well, I’m glad to see you in one piece, Bond.”  M said, his eyes still taking in Bond’s shadowy appearance.

“Well, I’m not glad to be back in one piece.”  

“So I see,”  M said, his tone somber and quiet; he didn’t want to spook Bond.  But the time for coddling was over.  He pointedly glanced down at Bond’s resignation letter, which had been staring at him from his desk since he’d received it a week into Bond’s disappearance.  Airmail from some small Mediterranean town.  Probably one that had a beach.  Obviously, he hadn’t accepted it.  “Why don’t you try and explain this to me.”

Bond shrugged his shoulders.  “My heart’s not in it anymore.”

“Your heart’s not in it?”  M asked.  He pinched the bridge of his nose.  “We don’t take resignations lightly.”

“I didn’t draft it lightly.  I paid for that postage,” Bond said, his tone dull and his eyes lifeless.

M’s eyes narrowed. Where did the life of that once brilliant man go?  “If you need time to reflect, we can give you that.  If you need to confess, we can also help you with that.  If you need silence and solitary work, we can give you that.  When was the last time you confessed?”

Bond’s eyes bore straight into M’s.

“Been that long, hmm.  If you need an exorcism, we can see to that as well.”  M looked back down at his desk.  That had at least gotten a one-sided lift of Bond’s mouth - a smile, no matter how small.  There was hope.  M drummed his fingers on his desk, gathering himself to speak.  “I can have Moneypenny set up what you need. I have come to discover that she is excellent at scheduling pigheaded priests to do my bidding.”  M flashed a small smile in Bond’s direction.

“I’ve grown weary,” Bond said with a raise of his shoulders.  “As much as I would enjoy bickering with your latest secretary, you can tell Miss Moneypenny that it’s not necessary to schedule my confession during the witching hour, nor an exorcism, although I thank you for the offer.  I’m not sure I can make this my life anymore.  It’s beginning to seem repetitive and monotonous.

“Monotonous?”  M asked.  There was no judgement in his eyes, merely a patient expectation. He gazed at Bond, who was sitting stiffly across from him.  “Is it a question of boredom or of faith?”  M kept barrelling forward, even as he saw the skin tighten around Bond’s eyes.  “It's happened before that a priest who has served as long as you, who has a kill number like yours, begins feeling unchallenged or experiences a loss of faith.”

“Call it whatever you like and be done with me,”  Bond said.  He made a face and tugged at the sleeves of his faded shirt and brushed off a piece of imaginary lint.  “Besides, it’s been nice to wear something that isn’t so heavily starched.”

M pursed his lips and drummed his fingers again.  “Well, you wrote such a succinct letter of resignation, perhaps there’s room for you on staff.”  A pair of faded ice blue eyes flew up to meet his, and M nearly choked on the laughter that he just barely managed to suppress by biting hard on his tongue.  He found the ability to fix Bond with a very stern look as Bond made a slash through the air with his hand.

“I’m not moving into an administrative position, if that’s what you mean.  I did not enter this section of the priesthood to shuffle after some doddering old fool who can’t hold a pen.”

M’s eyebrows winged up.  “My, my.  Do tell us how you feel.”  M decided to press his luck even further.  “Why did you join then?”

Bond narrowed his eyes at M.  “You know why.”

M shrugged.  “I’ve read your file, but the words and the man in front of me tell two very different stories.  Well, if you don’t care to be exorcised or be a valuable addition to my stash of secretaries, I do have a few missions that could do with new blood, someone looking for a cause, searching for a clue.”

Bond inhaled and M’s hopes were brought up, before they were dashed again.  “I don’t feel called to go anywhere.  I’ve looked.  Nothing says ‘you’re needed here.’  You have plenty of young upstarts who are dying to get on your good side and get their hands dirty, in more ways than one.  I have no faith that I would be more successful or needed than one of those upstarts.  Send them.”

“A faithless priest is a weak priest,”  M said, his voice soft and even….challenging.

Bond opened his mouth to reply, M could see the spark of anger flash through his eyes.

M waved his hand in the air.  “It leaves you open and vulnerable to those that we are trying to protect.”

“If you think so low of me, then why are you hedging on accepting my letter of resignation?”  Bond’s voice growled out soft and low across the desk to reach M’s ears.

M studied his desk for a moment, reflecting on what he was about to do.  He firmed his resolve and stood up from his chair to tuck Bond’s resignation letter away in one of his drawers. He pulled out a slim black folder.  Bond lifted one eyebrow, looking intrigued.  “There are so very few of us left.  Don’t worry though, I shall hold onto your letter until we really need it.”

Bond, again, opened his mouth to protest, his eyes finally snapping with anger and bringing to his face some sort of life.  M waved his anger off with a hand and strode around his desk, bypassing Bond.  “Come.  I have another assignment for you.  Call it a test of faith.”

Bond rolled his eyes.  “Unbelievable. I gave you my resignation…”

At the door, M looked over his shoulder.  “And I don’t accept it.  I do, however, challenge it and you as well.  If at the end of six months, you feel the same way, we’ll talk.  Until then...good luck.”  M held the black folder up and waved it at Bond.  

“Where is it?”  Bond asked as he rose from his chair and stalked towards M.

M smiled and Bond shivered as he felt his skin crawl at his expression. He took the folder, nonetheless, and glanced briefly at the cover.  His shoulders drooped.

“It’s a place of nightmares, where monsters lurk and darkness hides…”

“M, please, it’s Chelsea.”


	2. Chapter 2

“What’s so special about this place that you’re forcing me to go there?”  Bond hefted the slim folder M in his hands; it was very, very light.  “I thought we were a fighting section.  Do you expect me to be very busy, fighting boredom at a quiet little church?”

M stood calmly and simply shrugged at Bond’s protest of his new assignment.  “Sometimes, you have to see to believe that there are worse demons out there than your own.” He spun on his heel and exited the safety of his inner chambers before Bond could have the last word. 

Bond stared long and hard as that goody two-shoes Bishop swished out his door and gave Moneypenny an order to settle Bond’s transfer to the new church and rectory.

Moneypenny was little to no help, a mystery herself.  He wasn’t given a chance to know her as she briskly walked him through the personnel papers.  Insurance, transfer, pension...blah blah blah.  As if any of Bond’s brethren lived long enough to see retirement.

“What do you know about…”  Bond’s mouth tightened at the name.  “ _ The Church of the Resurrection _ ?”  Ha, bloody ha.  The universe was definitely using him as a punching bag.

“I know it’s a church and that you’re going to it,”  Moneypenny said, her dainty, evil looking shoes clicking across the parquet floor, back and forth to various files.

“What about my former brethren? When did they retire...or die?”  Bond asked. Best to know what sort of situation he was going to get into.  His kind didn’t survive long; that was no secret.

“I don’t know,” Moneypenny said.  “They’ve gone through quite a lot of priests, if the file is any indication.”

“It’s quite light for a church that’s been around this long and with so many of us dying there...or running from it.  I’m surprised there’s not a full on profile and dossier in here about what to expect when you’re demon fighting.”

Moneypenny smiled at him.  “Can’t expect me to do your job.  Study the file if you’re curious.”

Bond turned the slim folder over in his hands and cracked it open.  All it held were a few sheets of paper with three columns each.  In each column was the name and term for the warrior priests that had been assigned to  _ The Church of the Resurrection _ .  Bond let out a whistle.  

“What?”  Moneypenny asked, her curiosity peaked.

His eyebrows came together and he could feel a headache beginning to form behind his right eye socket.  How on earth had Bishop M managed to cover the mysterious disappearance of so many of his brethren?  He continued to study the list of names in silence.

"Well, now I am intrigued,” Moneypenny tapped her immaculately groomed nails on her chin.  “Share with the class!”

Bond flipped the file around and pointed to the neatly printed sheets.  “Six months.  All of these priests stayed at most six months.  That’s impossible.  I’ve never heard of such a thing.  Have you?”

Moneypenny shrugged her shoulders.  “Can’t say that I have.  Can’t say that I haven’t.  I’m still getting used to Bishop M; I haven’t had a chance to poke around in all the old files like a proper spy.”

“This guy lasted a week. That’s it!”  Bond pointed to a name.  “And this guy, and this one lasted a month!  What’s wrong with the place?  What’s there that’s this powerful?”  Bond shook the slim file in frustration.  “There’s nothing in here!  M is a right bastard.”

“Careful there,”  Moneypenny said, a note of warning laced through her voice, her dark eyes narrowing at him.

“Oh, he knows he’s a bastard.  And don’t slap your newfound loyalty in my face.  He didn’t accept my letter of resignation; no, he just sat like a spider on his web and waited for me to come back and then give me this nonsense.  Well, if he wants to kill me, he can do it his own damn self.”

“Perhaps he is,”  Moneypenny said, her fingers flicking away at the files in the file cabinet, not bothering to track him with her eyes as he paced back and forth.

Bond snorted.  “I bet.”

“Perhaps he wished to see if you were made of sterner stuff or give you a true coward’s way out.”

“Careful there, we’ve only just met,” Bond said. He stopped in his pacing, to glare at her from over his shoulder.  It should have had the opposite effect from making her laugh. 

“Well, I am definitely intrigued.  I’m afraid I might have to stay in contact with you just to hear the juicy gossip,”  Moneypenny said, finally looking up at him, smiling.  Her eyes crinkled at the corners.  A friendly smile at least, Bond thought, or as friendly as a shark got.

“You’re sure you don’t have any idea, any clue?”

“Not a scooby doo,” Moneypenny said, closing the file cabinets.  “Now, seeing that we have not solved the Great Mystery of the Church of the Resurrection just by gabbing about it, perhaps you’ll be a dear and fill out this personnel transfer paperwork for me.”  She dropped a wad of papers on top of the slim file.  “We’ll talk about pension plan updates in a minute.”

Bond sat down primly on the chair closest to Ms Moneypenny’s desk.  “Where on Earth did M find you?”

“MI6 secretary pool.”

Well, nothing had gotten Bond to laugh so hard as that in a long time.  He left Ms Moneypenny in a better mood than when he had started the day.    He marched off to his new assignment, leaving M’s offices and the halls of St. Paul’s Cathedral still intact.  All he wanted to do was rage and knock something down...break something.  At least M had assigned him to this posting and maybe he’d get his wish and either destroy something or die.  

Bond took a train and a long walk, dragging his feet before arriving at his new assignment, where he was promptly caught at a traffic stop, waiting to cross a busy intersection.  Chelsea, where everything was perfect.  Perfect rows of buildings that were perfect in their uniformity, perfect looking people, perfect-looking trees and perfect-looking parks.  If he were sane, he wouldn’t hate the perfect parks, he was sure of it.  He might be the only imperfect thing in the area. 

He rubbed his eyes tiredly and glanced over, catching sight of a beautiful woman, wearing a no-nonsense, well-fitted suit, striding purposefully to the same corner he was on.  Which direction she was headed towards, he could only guess.  He allowed a brief glance of admiration from head to toe while she was distracted by the phone in her hand.  Something ran up his spine, and he spun around, searching for the source of that feeling.  Someone jostled him, though, and after they passed, he had lost the feeling.  

"Dammit.”  Bond let out a low grumble of sound.  He moved along with the rest of the perfect pedestrians until he arrived in front of his new posting.  From the sidewalk, he studied the buildings with a cynical eye.  It would be his home for the next...well, if history was anything to go by...six months.  At least the church suited his mood.  

It had survived the blitz...but barely.  He had studied the slim dossier and poked around in the internet as Moneypenny had suggested to him, so he knew its main stone tower had taken the brunt of the blast from a parachute landmine and had collapsed in on itself, damaging the main hall.  The smaller, older chapel with recycled Roman tiles had blessedly remained steady and mostly undamaged, save for a bit of water damage from trying to put the nearby fires out, some superficial cracks, and maybe the linens had shifted a bit.  The whole of the church had required extensive reconstruction, only being rededicated in the late 1950’s. It had opened its doors with a new name:  _ The Church of the Resurrection, Chelsea _ .  Worship had gone on, precariously so in the small chapel section while the rebuild was in process.  

Bond scratched at his wrist as his skin suddenly woke up and began to crawl.  

“Demon sign,” Bond muttered.  “Damn it, M!”  His body was on fire, trying to escape whatever it was that was now chasing him.  His cassock was too tight, too heavy, he just wanted to peel it off and run through...something, the ocean, a sandstorm, anything to feel something.  Fine, whatever, maybe he’d drink all the wine from the sacristy and set the whole place on fire.  Perhaps that wouldkill whatever it was that M wanted him to take care of and clue him in on the fact that he was finally done.

“What’s in this place?”  Bond asked, mostly to himself. There was no one else around, and the wind was...perfectly still.  Mothers were walking their prams, children were in school, and Dads rushed to work.  The street was quiet, Bond glanced around he should have at least heard the squeaking of a pram wheel, the honk of a horn, shoes on the pavement yet all around Bond, it was silent.  

Disturbed by the silence, Bond looked up and saw the beautiful woman from earlier, a willowy brunette, marching purposefully towards him.  He smiled beatifically at her, assuming she would bypass him.  Instead, she marched right up to him.  

Bond held his hand out to her in order to be polite. She gave his hand a dismissing glance, before bringing her phone up, thumbing through it.  He studied the well manicured cherry red fingernails that matched her lipstick, quite at odds to the black of her suit.    His skin began to dance...and his lip pulled back as long-ingrained instincts crept to the front.

“I’m the money,” she said, her green eyes flitting up to his briefly, as if she could finally be bothered to look away from her device.

Bond’s lips pulled back into a snarl, preparing to bloody the streets.  She had a sharp smile tucked under her cherry red lips.  

“What do you want?” he asked, his hands slowly moving to tuck themselves in his long sleeves.  He glanced about the peaceful churchyard and sidewalk with its mothers and prams.  While it wouldn’t be the first time he’d caused a scene, he wasn’t sure how forgiving M would be if there was bloodshed and mayhem on the six o’clock news.

“It depends,” she said simply in return, as if she couldn’t feel the storm brewing in front of her.  “And I was talking to my accountant, not to you.”  She returned her phone to her purse and studied him.  

They had a bit of a stare off, Bond and this strange feeling woman.  Bond squared his shoulders and smiled; perhaps he’d finish M’s wretched job before it even started.  “Did we have an appointment?  I’ve not checked my diary lately.”  

She settled back, her arms crossing her chest.  “Humor, how clever.”

“So they say.  What do you want?” Bond asked, tired of the back and forth.  If he wanted that, then he would have would have stayed under M’s thumb until he died.

Her smile flashed once more across her face, sharper than the first time, practically pointed.  She was ready to eat him alive and whole, he thought.  Another moment of awkward silence passed, and as much as he would have enjoyed a quick and bloody battle so he could leave this place, M wouldn’t easily forgive something so drastic and indiscreet.  

Perhaps he was overreacting and it was just a flicker of his imagination, seeing the devil in the woman, as all women had in them.  He glanced away taking a moment to calm himself and weighed his options again.  Kill or be killed.  Deal with M now after a rash moment, or later after he had planned a killing.  Deal with M later after he had made a true assessment won out.

Moving away, he shifted towards the gate of the small church yard hoping she would take the hint.  

She did not.

Instead, she held out a small black matte card.  He glanced down at it, loathe to take something from her, demons were a tricky lot.  It had a single name across the front of it printed in glossy black lettering.  Well, if that wasn’t ominous.

“Vesper Lynd.  Hmmm, hope you gave your parents hell for that one,” Bond said with some humor, as he read the card. 

“I’m not at your service.  You’re at mine.”  She pushed the card forward, attempting to touch him with it.

Bond swung the church gate open and stepped backwards, avoiding her touch.  “I beg your pardon?”  A child screamed with laughter somewhere in the distance and that caught both of their attention.  He heard a hiss and when he jerked back around, he watched a pram pushing mother jog past him, through the spot where Vesper had once stood.  The wheels squeaked slightly and a faint whiff of sulfur or something burning wafted past his nose.  It was a very old and familiar smell, one that he was trained to recognize.

He sniffed again and narrowed his eyes suspiciously.  It was definitely demon sign.  Her card lay on the ground.  He picked up a stick from the church yard and struck the card with it, sending it skittering across the pavement.  Nothing unholy would travel with him inside.   “At her service,”  Bond muttered.  “What the hell happened here?”  

Although the question he should have asked himself was, what happens here?  With no other recourse or divine inspiration striking him, Bond pushed open the gate and approached what he would now hopefully make into a stronghold.  Shore up its defenses and hope that he lasted through the fight that was coming.

His footsteps made echoing taps along the flagstones as he entered the small wing that contained the offices for him and the secretary... secretaries... whoever they were.  No one had made their presence known yet.  How fortunate.  Maybe there wasn’t even a secretary. The file had held very little information and the website...was a hell pit of useless information.  

The congregation had dwindled over the years, split once and then again.  He only knew this because he had managed to strong-arm one of M’s minions to dig into the archives.  He had bypassed Moneypenny because she wouldn’t have wasted the effort on him.

“You’re a big boy, look up the information on your own.  There’s something called...the internet,”  Moneypenny had answered when he had demanded to know more.  

That was how he found the buildings, with its old facade, its old information and its provincial look.  He was going to go insane if he had to stare at yellow all day.  Maybe he’d start peeling the wallpaper off.  It would be an improvement.


	3. Chapter 3

The woman in black had shown up at his first service and had appeared at each one since, never missing a mass.  If she was what he suspected, she should have never been able to set foot onto the grounds.  However, she always appeared, setting his teeth on edge and the small hairs at the nape of his neck to rise as she smiled at him from the back pew, her green eyes glittering at him.   He could taste bile rising in the back of his mouth.  

The other parishioners could sense something that they didn’t even understand as she walked amongst them.  She was the black spot on the back of a pale hand.  Babies cried when she looked at them, children hid behind their parents, and the adults, well, they avoided her at all costs, stepping to the side whenever she passed them.  She rarely spoke to them, and they rarely spoke to her.  He began to wonder if they could even see her.

But her eyes, followed him and her lips, well.... Many women had looked at him like that, men as well.  There was something about the priesthood that appealed to those who wanted a bite out of the forbidden fruit; there was also the matter that some of his own brethren would allow that bite.  Bond was not one of them; he had a clean slate and he hoped he kept it that way.  Maybe that’s how his predecessors left this place.

“Falling victim to what we’ve been trained to kill.  Oldest story in the book,” Bond snarled to himself.  Again, his anger at M flared.  “You bastard.”  He had tried to reach M, but somehow, mysteriously, he was never available.  He had threatened Moneypenny last time he had phoned in, two days ago.  She had laughed at him.

“Sure, fine, come down here in a strop if you like.  I’ll put it in his appointment book; what time works for you?”  Moneypenny had said, her voice heavy with amusement.  

“This isn’t a joke, Moneypenny, where’s M?”

“Doing his job, as you should be doing yours.”

“I am doing my job,” Bond hissed into the phone.

“Is whining part of that job?  You know what you have to do.”

Bond had held the receiver away from his ear and looked at it much as he would have looked at a a serpent handing him an apple.  What was it with Eves?  He’d shook his head and hung up the phone.  Threats had had no effect on her and she’d been right. If he showed up at M’s office, he’d be seen as whining that he couldn’t finish the job.  He’d needed more information.

At coffee hour one morning, he had approached one of the little old ladies who was wearing a deep plum mackintosh, the only other person aside from the woman in black who wore darker colors.  She was sneaking biscuits into her matching plum handbag.  He coughed, making his presence known.

“For later,” she said, patting her handbag.  “Bernard loves these little biscuits.”

He smiled at her. Dear Christ, save him.  “And who is Bernard?”  

She smiled back at him.  “You have the prettiest eyes.  But don’t be tellin’ anyone I said that.  I plan to go to heaven, mind you.”

That earned a genuine smile from him and a pat on his cheek from her.

“Now, Bernard,” she said, “he’s my precious boy, my snickerdoodle.”

“He sounds charming,”  Bond said. “Is he your husband?”

“Dear boy, no!  Bernard is my dog, a Maltese.  Such a dear.  My husband is not a precious boy.”  She winked at him.  “He’s quite a naughty boy, much like you, I’d wager.”

Bond was surprised into a guffaw for a half second and caught his laugh on a cough.  Her eyes sparkled up at him.  “And what would you be knowing about naughty boys?”  he asked.

She reached a hand up and tweaked his nose.  “Now, now, a lady must keep some secrets.”

Bond murmured in return, “I’m sure, Mrs McMurtry.  Speaking of secrets…”

“Were we?”  She sidled up to him and linked her arm with his.  “Do tell.”

“Now, what do you know about Ms Lynd?  Ms Vesper Lynd.”  Bond could tell by the grumpy little frown that rose and disappeared from Mrs McMurtry’s face that he was going to be in for an interesting story.  

“She’s a bit of a secret, that one is.  I don’t recommend a nice boy like yourself getting mixed up with her naughty self.”

Bond smiled down at Mrs McMurtry.  At least he wasn’t crazy and someone could see her.  “I thought I was the naughty one.”

Mrs McMurtry snorted.  “My dear, there is all sorts of naughty in this world, and you’re the lesser of the naughty folk.  No, Ms Lynd has been worshipping here for ages, if worshipping is what you call it.”  She gave him an epic side eye and a little hmm.  “Her family is wealthy and so is she.  Some of it family money and some of it her money.  No one really knows where it comes from. All she says is ‘business.’ I have half a mind as to what sort of business that would be.  However, her family has always been one of the largest financial contributors of our little parish, and she’s now the matriarch, which is a shame really.  She’s rarely here, only when...”

They had walked to one of the large windows in the parish hall and were looking out on a little section of garden that was now a little less wild-looking thanks to Bond’s slightly greenish thumb.  Bond waited for her to continue, but she remained silent for a long moment before speaking again.

“It’s amazing what you’ve done to the yew tree, much better.”  Mrs McMurtry continued to admire the garden.  “I’m glad you didn’t cut everything back, it shows itself off much nicer now.”

“What’s a shame?  About Ms Lynd?”

Mrs. McMurtry glanced up at him, and a look of sadness fogged her expression for a very brief second, and Bond wondered at it.  

“She’s not for you dear, I’d leave her be,” Mrs. McMurtry said, a tone of wistfulness in her voice.  She gazed back out at the garden and hugged her handbag to her tightly, as if she were protecting Bernard’s precious biscuits.  “Good things happen when she’s not around and bad things, well, they follow her.”

Bond’s eyebrows dropped down at her turn of expression.  He opened his mouth to question her further, but she just patted his hand once more before extricating her arm from his.

“You have a nice day, dear. I’ll see you next Sunday.  Mustn’t keep Bernard waiting!”  And with that, she was gone, a cryptic message in a plum-colored mackintosh.

One month full of services that came accompanied by a sneering woman in black.  Rather than come to the rail for communion or ask for a blessing, she would remain in her place, her cherry red lips smiling from where she stood.  He eyes following him as person by person, he doled out the communion wafers and offered the wine.  Mrs McMurtry was right: there were all sorts of naughty and Ms Lynd was at the top of that list of demonic naughty.  She appeared when least expected, she left when she had made everyone uncomfortable, and no one spoke of her or to her.  He’d yet been able to pinpoint where she made her nest, if it was in this world or hell.

While all this was going on, Bond still had to maintain his priestly duties, including repairing a toilet.  He threw his sponge down into the bucket he was using to clean the bathroom floor after an unfortunate overflow.  This was it; he was in Hell.  Officially in Hell.  He didn’t need any wandering demons with lust in their eyes to tell him that.  The foul smelling water was a much better fortune teller. 

“But no, it’s that bitch,”  Bond whispered as he sat back on his heels and swiped his hand across his forehead.  He picked his sponge back up and hefted it in his hand.  “Plumbing would be so much more easier to fix.”

“It’s nice to see a priest on his knees.”

Bond closed his eyes.  Speak of the devil and it appears.  Or more like think.  He turned his head around and rested his spongeless hand on his knees.  She loomed above him, a black shadow in the doorway.  He wondered briefly what would happen if he were to chuck his piss filled sponge at her.  He grinned at the thought.

“What can I do for you?” He rose from the floor, tossing his sponge into the bucket hand, but he took a step back, as she reached out to touch him.  He reached for the holy water he kept tucked away on his person.  What better place to do a bloody battle, than in a room covered in tile. 

“There’s just something about a penitent man that I just adore.”  Ms Lynd smiled, the edges of her wide lips rising to meet the corners of her eyes.  “Perhaps you should perform service just like that.  Set an example to all the men.  Some of the women, in fact.”

He slowly pulled the small flask of holy water out, palming it.  He flicked the cap open.  “Perhaps a sermon on contrition would be a good idea.  For there is much to ask forgiveness for, and everyone can benefit from an apology.”

“Pretty words to go with a pretty face.”

“My sentiments would be the same. However, my words would be meaningless.  Excuse me.”  He moved swiftly, tossing the holy water at her. 

She hissed and jerked away.  

Steam rose from where she had been standing.  She was gone now.  His nose wrinkled, as the smell of sulfur wafted up to him.    Bond quickly checked behind the door and came slowly away, she was nowhere to be found.    

Bond made his way quickly back to his office and dropped the bucket in the middle of the floor before rounding his desk.  He didn’t even bother with turning on the light.  He didn’t fucking care.  There was definitely something here, at the  _ Church of the Resurrection  _ that shouldn’t be here and it was time to stop fixing toilets and get on with the job at hand.


	4. Chapter 4

 There were things beyond explanation, things that we were never prepared for and things that were going to come and eat you at night.  Don’t let them lie to you.  Bond was sent into battle an ancient enemy, one we’re lucky enough not to see.

“Fuck,” Bond whispered, as he dumped the contents of his drawers out, as he searched through them.  “And fuck M.  Six months, my arse,”  Bond hissed as he pawed through another drawer.  Aha, there it was.  

The rectangular box was filled with the remnants of a past life.  Vices that he had never quite let go.  A photo of a life that was never meant to be, a notification of his expulsion from a school that had admonished his behavior, an old, cracked bulldog covered in the union jack, a bottle that was older than he was, etched with symbol of a stag and the faded words SKYFALL, a shot glass and his last pack of cigarettes.  

The last two were items that he had promised he would never again pick up  on the day that he took his vows.  

Well, promises were always made to be broken.  He didn’t care how dry and foul they were; he was going to have one. He took from the box the cigarettes and the bottle.  

He thought about how to word his next correspondence to M when reporting on the ‘health’ of the parish.  

_Dear M,_

_It would seem we have a woman hell bent on eating your priests.  I do mean that in every sense of the word.  Please advise._

_Your Loyal Servant,_

_J.B._

Bond snorted as he mentally composed his letter.  The bottle made a dull clunking sound when he set it on the top of his desk.

_Dear M,_

_There’s a roving bitch here that may be part hellhound._

_Your Loyal Servant,_

_J.B._

The wrapping of the pack of cigarettes crinkled loudly in his office.

_Dear M,_

_One of the most seemingly devout financial contributors seems to be what’s wrong with this parish.  I urge you most ardently to let me remove her._

_Your Loyal Servant,_

_J.B._

“Or have me removed,” Bond muttered to himself.  He sorted through the middle drawer of his desk until he found two items of silver.  A vial of holy water and lighter.  Once found, he turned to sit on his desk, ignoring the chair and the paperwork.  He stared at the window, covered with its heavy curtains and tucked the vial of holy water into a pocket and played with the lighter.

_Dear M,_

_You’re fucked and so is this parish if you don’t get rid of Ms Vesper Lynd as soon as possible.  I’m leaving in the morning, after I take care of this nasty piece of business for you.  Accept this as my final resignation._

_Never Your Loyal Servant,_

_J.B._

“She’ll make her move soon, if that’s what I read from the situation,”  he said out loud to the cigarette dangling between his fingers.  

His gaze flicked from the window to the ground and the funny patterns in the office rug.  “I’d rather she not, if you don’t mind.  There’s been enough bloodshed.” Bond scrubbed at his face and then his chest as if he could scrub away what he did for a living.  

Another assignment, another demon to kill and people to save.  “It’s time to get started and protect the lambs form the wolves,” Bond said.  His voice low and firm.  The fight was at hand.  He flicked his lighter absentmindedly as he whispered a single prayer to the carpet fibers.  

Bond took a quick swig of the whiskey. It burned memories of a time past, smooth and warm down his throat and over his tongue.  “Fuck.”  He swiped the back of his hand across his mouth, jammed a cigarette in-between his lips, and lit it.  The end flared and Bond was lit from below by a hellish orange light.  He closed his eyes and sucked in the first drag, savoring it for a moment and then coughing it out in a smoky breath.  “Damn,” Bond said, his mouth and eyes watering.

“You should be more careful; these old buildings don’t have fire suppression systems.”

Bond jerked around at the smooth, delicate voice laced with humor.  His freshly lit cigarette dangled from his lips.  It bobbed up and down as he spoke to the intruder,  “Who are you?”

A very young and unfamiliar man with a head of thick, dark, curly hair, and spectacle-covered green eyes that stared unwavering at Bond stood in the doorway.  Bond’s own gaze narrowed; he’d seen that eye color before on another shapely...demonic parishioner.  Except this one was hiding his figure with a shapeless priest’s cassock and an atrocious pair of shoes peeking out from beneath the hem.  A small smile pulled at the corner of his wide mouth as the young man studied Bond back.

“I said, who are you?” Bond growled out again.

The cheeky imp with the pretty face grinned at Bond.  “I hardly know, sir, just at present, at least I know who I _WAS_ when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.”  The young man walked into Bond’s office.  “My, my, this is quite drab.”

“Explain yourself.”  Bond’s voice lashed across the room, the smell of stale smoke filling the room as he blew a plume out.

“'I can't explain myself, I'm afraid, sir, because I'm not myself, you see.”  Again, a flash of smile as he approached the front of Bond’s desk.  He flicked his fingers out and traced the edge of the wood desk before perching on the corner.

“That makes absolutely no sense unless your name is Alice,”  Bond replied. He took a long drag on his cigarette, not giving a fuck who saw him.  

“Clever,”  the young man said as one side of his lips curled up into a smirk.

“That’s what they tell me.  Actually, no, they don’t.  They usually say ‘aren’t you pretty’ and nothing about my brains.” Bond pulled the cigarette from his lips and tapped the ashes onto the floor.  

That surprised a true laugh out of the young man.  God, so young.  “Are you here for training or to replace me?”  Bond asked.  What was wrong with M, recruiting them so young?  Bond couldn’t even remember being that young.  

“Mmmm, neither.”  The young man said as he continued to trace the swirls of wood on the desk.

“So once again, Who are you and what do you want?”  Bond asked, his hands opening to swish about, illustrating the nooks and crannies of his office.  

“I am no one important,”  the young man clasped his hands on his lap and smiled at Bond, as if waiting for him to figure out the puzzle.

“Huh,”  Bond replied, taking another drag of his cigarette and coming around to the front, leaving his place of safety from behind the desk.  He leaned his own hip against the desk, nearly hip to knee with his new guest and narrowed his eyes suspiciously at his ‘guest’ lounging on his desk.  

The young man leaned towards him just a tad.  “Is this an interrogation?  I’ve never been in an interrogation.  Make me tell you something,” he whispered.

“M wouldn’t have sent you.”   

"No.”

“Moneypenny might have the balls to send you?”

“She might.”

Bond cocked his head to the side. He could smell the demon sign, now that he was this close.  He inhaled a long drag and removed the cigarette again to flick the ash to the floor.  Under pretence of getting more comfortable, he reached for the vial he had tucked away.  

The young man smiled and deftly swiped the cigarette from Bond’s hand.  “But they didn’t send me.  I sent myself, exactly when you asked for help.”  A feral smile crept around the cigarette that was now firmly in the stranger’s possession.  He blew the smoke he inhaled back into Bond’s face before he could withdraw the vial of holy water.

 _Rude_ , was all Bond was able to think, before he became frozen in place, locked to his desk.  The young man was unaffected. Bond’s brain stuttered for a moment as the man leaned closer to him. He could see his own reflection in the lenses of the glasses perched on the bridge of the man’s nose.  

Everything in Bond woke up and recognized what had happened.  He was trapped, by what he hunted.

A hand came up and trailed along the tips of his hair, the shell of his ear, and across his cheekbone before exploring the slight crook to his nose.  One too many battles that had finally left its mark across his face.  How did he not recognize what was now taking it’s time toying with him.  What had he let in?  The hand dropped to the corner of his jaw and finally swooped down to his adam’s apple. He tried to swallow, just to see if he could.  

The bob of it caused the man to start with slight surprise and glance up into Bond’s frozen gaze.  Bond received a smile, made lopsided by the cigarette in the man’s lips, before the fingers began their curious exploration again.  Lower and lower still.  If Bond could have killed the owner of the hands exploring him with such familiarity, he would have, or he would have broken each and every finger that was now taking liberties to lightly graze along his biceps and ribs.  Bond blinked as Q bent to explore his kneecaps and shins, as if he were a prize hog about to be taken to market.

“Now, that you’ve stopped running that mouth, I can answer some of your questions,”  the young man said.  He rose from the desk, cigarette still clamped in his lips.  “This is quite old by the way, stale.  Very stale.  I wasn’t sure my spell would work with smoke this old.”

Bond could only roll his eyes to show the universal sign for boring.

"No, no, don’t try to pull away from the spell. I can feel everything you try to do, from breathing to…” The man swiftly, and without so much as a by your leave, he pressed his ear against Bond’s chest. “...hearing your heartbeat.  It makes a wonderful sound doesn’t it?  Ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum.  One could almost dance to it, don’t you think?”

Bond was unable to answer, but in his head, he was creating a list of ways to kill the creature before him the minute he was released.  And if not kill, make miserable for the rest of his unnatural born life.

“My name is Q.”  The young man smiled and stroked Bond’s face one more time before blowing another puff of smoke in his face.  He made delicate swirling motions in the cloud of smoke with an equally delicate finger.


	5. Chapter 5

Bond pressed against whatever it was that was immobilizing him, whatever spell was being used to cage him, freeze him.  Stupid, stupid, stupid move.  To let his guard down for one second.  To focus solely on one target when there could have been more.  

A rookie mistake, one he should never have made.  This so-called Q would die and then Vesper would die and then he’d hunt down any other demons that hunted this quiet little church.  

If his lips could move, this would be easier. he could cast a counterspell to whatever it was that was holding him, but nothing useful outside of breathing and small eye movements would move.  He couldn’t even grind his teeth together in frustration, but he focused intensely on Q as he began a litany of spells in his head.  Surely, something would get out!

“Now, I know this means absolutely nothing to you, but you asked for help and I answered,”  Q said as he took another drag from the stolen cigarette and considered Bond as he struggled within the bounds of Q’s spell.  “Now, I assume you’re furiously chanting at me in Latin.  That’s good, that’s clever, but it’s not going to work.  Not against my spell.  You have to speak to break it.  If I let you speak, will you cast me out?”  Q carefully watched Bond as he asked his question and he must have seen some sort of answer in Bond’s face.  “Ah, no, I suppose you would cast me out, that’s a shame.”  Q flicked more ash away.  “You know these are bad for you right?”  He finally snuffed the cigarette out on his own palm and held it out to Bond, no injury in sight.  His palm was smooth, bare and pale against the sleeve of the priest’s cassock.  “Now, what have we here?”  Q turned to observe the items strewn about Bond’s desk.

Bond lunged for Q’s hands, intending to break them before they reached the ceramic bulldog.  Something must have tugged at the spell and caught Q’s attention because Q paused.

Bond couldn’t see what Q did in that moment because his own gaze was still frozen, trapped to constantly view a corner of the room, but Q, in his curiosity, made it a bit easier on him by moving to peer into his face.  

Q’s pale fingertips came up to tap at his chin.  “And who put the face of an angel on such a weary soul?”  Q asked, his touch light and his voice even lighter.  

Bond would have laughed, if he could have.  His face had grown as weary as his soul and the one in the room with the face of an angel was now studiously examining what remained.  How silly the little devil couldn’t see the irony in the exchange.  

“Well, enough of this then,”  Q said. He flicked his hand up and down his body and the priest’s cassock disappeared.  In its place, a horrid cardigan, ill-patterned trousers, and atrocious shoes appeared.  “As I’m sure you’ve noticed, I’m not one of your kind.  Well that bottle looks old...interesting.”

Q’s attention returned to the items on Bond’s desk.  Bond couldn’t see what Q was doing, but he could hear liquid being poured and the slight clink of glass.  Seems like the little creature was into alcohol.  

“I know it must seem like I’m monologuing right now, and you wouldn’t be wrong, but is it a villainous monologue?  Is it, do you think, or do you think I have something else in mind?  I mean,” Q leaned back once more to smile once more at Bond, as if they were two chaps discussing the weather.  “I could be about to deliver a nefarious message of doom, about how you don’t have long to live, Mr...Bond, is it?  Yes, that’s what your funny little name plate says.  Mr Bond, James Bond.  What a simple name, for a man of simple living, although the items on your desk tell quite another story.”

Blah, blah, blah, Bond thought to himself, Q was indeed monologuing.   _ Get to the point, _ Bond roared inside his head and made another vicious attempt at a lunge, chanting another counter-spell in his head.  This time, the result was Q jerking back and away from the desk in surprise as Bond’s counterspell, but nothing else happened.  Q turned his head to meet Bond’s eyes, the slit of light coming from the window catching and highlighting one green eye.

“Clever,”  Q whispered.  “But not clever enough.  If you’d let me finish my monologue of doom, you might remember that you asked for help.  You didn’t specify any diety when you prayed.  So I answered.  You should be more careful.”

Bond tried to sag in irritation but of course, nothing of him was working; therefore, he couldn’t move when something slender was brought up to his lips.

“There’s always a price, isn’t there?”  Q asked, his voice a whisper.  “I’m afraid I’ll need to waste another one of your precious, forbidden cigarettes and a bit of your whiskey for this.”  

Q used his fingers to just press the tip of the cigarette into Bond’s mouth. He flicked the lighter and held the flame up to the cigarette and forgot to take into account that someone wouldn’t just go along with breathing.  

They had a bit of a stare off as obviously, Q could outwait Bond’s not breathing.  Bond’s breath finally left him in a whoosh and air was pulled back into desperate lungs, along with smoke. He began to cough.

“There, there, that’s alright.”  Q took a drag from the cigarette.  “From your lips to mine.”  He blew the smoke back into Bond’s face as he coughed.  

Q held up something and Bond saw that it was a glass tumbler with a finger’s worth of whiskey in it.  That little fucker better not pour it on him; it would be a waste of good whiskey.   

He watched as Q took one sip, leaving half the whiskey still in the tumbler.  Q gave a small smile as he raised the glass in salute before he touched the glass to Bond’s lips and put a hand behind Bond’s head.  He pulled on the short strands of Bond’s hair until he had forced his head back a little bit.  Bond now had a view of the top of his bookcases.  Great.

“And now, from my lips to yours,”  Q murmured softly, his lips just grazing the shell of Bond’s ear.  

Q tipped the tumbler and the whiskey burned on its way down as Q slowly poured the liquid in.  Bond was forced to swallow or drown, although some of it did dribble out.  Q licked it off delicately. His tongue was sandpapery, like a cat, and for a brief moment, Bond wondered if perhaps all cats and demons weren’t strangely related.    

The whiskey burned in such a way that Bond had never experienced before, which was odd, considering how much he had drunk in his life.  It was as if something Q had done to the alcohol was now branding him from the inside. 

“There, that’s better.  A dark promise in a dark room with two dark souls.  Don’t think I haven’t seen what’s in yours.  You are mine and I am yours for as long as you need assistance,”  Q explained as he turned to place the items he had used in his spell onto Bond’s desk.  “You need a cat to balance out this dog statue, I think.”

Bond glared as much as he could from the angle he was in.  At least, he might be right about that cat thing.

Q snapped his fingers and the immobility spell he had cast on Bond immediately released him.  Bond’s body first wobbled and then nearly sank off of the desk since he wasn’t prepared for the sudden release.  

Q quickly put out a hand to steady him and was met by another steady hand as it reached for his throat.  

“Well now,” Q murmured, “let’s see what happens.”

“You’ll regret everything that just happened as I leave you broken in this room, demon,” Bond growled.  It should have been simple, he should have spoken a quick spell to overpower the demon and squeeze his scrawny little neck until his head popped off.  

He found himself unable to do it, though.  His fingers merely stroked the strong pulse along the side of Q’s neck.  The skin was smooth, strong and young.  Bond bared his teeth at the feel.

“Yes, I’m waiting,”  Q whispered into the void between them.  “Break me, if you can.”

Bond was flummoxed as nothing came out of his mouth and no harm came from his hands; it was like they weren’t even his own hands.  They refused to obey him.  He braced himself one more time and switched it up.  

One hand went to squeeze Q’s jaw hard between his hand and his other hand came up to snag a handful of the demon’s hair in an attempt at something - Bond didn’t know what - to break Q, but all that happened was that his traitorous hands explored, rather than hurt.  His hands dragged through smooth, silky curls, cold to the touch and down to the corners of Q’s jaw.  Bond glanced up, fire in his eyes as he became even more furious.

“You can’t, can you?” Q asked, a note of amusement in his voice as he tipped his head into Bond’s hands, like a cat enjoying a good scratch.

Bond flung himself away from Q.  “What is this, what have you done?”  Bond asked, his voice low and harsh as he studied his hands.  He trembled slightly at the thought that this might be permanent.  

He turned, hiding his motions as he withdrew his vial of holy water and uncapped it.  Bond ground his teeth together and stalked forward to Q, who hadn’t moved an inch from where he’d left him, his hair in even more disarray than when he had first came in and a look of interest on his face.  “Let’s try this on for size,” Bond growled as he moved to fling the holy water at Q.

He missed.  Q was two feet in front of him.  He flung it again.  He missed.

“When was the last time you touched someone without hurting them?”  Q asked, his head tilting to the side.

“God dammit, what the fuck is wrong with you?  With me?  What have you done?”  Bond moved to backhand Q but instead found himself caressing a sharp cheekbone covered in taut, fine skin.  

Q leaned into the touch again, smiling.  

Bond backpedaled in horror.  “What have you done?”  he asked once more.

“I have bound you to me.”  Q shrugged and pushed his glasses up his nose with his knuckles.  “I thought it safest.  You asked for help, but you didn’t seem like the kind of person who’d accepted help easily, especially from-”

“A demon?”  Bond asked, incredulous.

“Exactly.  Actually, not exactly, more like from anyone.  You should wear a sign, it’d be safer for all: ‘Confront me if I don’t ask for help.’”  Q laughed at his own joke.

Bond did not laugh at Q’s pitiful sense of humor.  He stayed where he was, two feet away from Q, the two of them watching each other.  One with amusement, one with horror.

“Answer my question,” Q said.

“What question?” Bond asked, baffled by the direction the conversation wasn’t going.

“When was the last time you touched someone without hurting them?”  Q repeated his question from earlier, his voice soft, posh, and delicately drawn-out like he was asking Bond a terrible thing.

Bond shifted his balance until he was on the balls of his feet, ready to run, fight, anything but talk.

“Answer me.”

“Why?”  Bond asked.

“So many questions the both of us have,” Q said with a hum “You go first.  When?”

Bond glanced around the room; there was nothing of him in it and nothing for him out of it.  He glared at Q.  “I shake the parishioners’ hands.”

“I’m not sure if that qualifies,” Q said, staring curiously at Bond.

“It’s your turn now,” Bond said, through gritted teeth.  “I want answers.”

“Oh well, surely you know  _ some _ answers,”  Q said, finally standing and moving towards Bond, who remained where he was.  “Like why is the sky blue and what’s two plus two.”

Bond rolled his eyes and sighed. It was a relief to perform such a small show of irritation.  “I know that...mostly, however…” Bond waved his hand between the two of them.  “We’re not on the same side.”

“Aren’t we?” Q asked, coming to stand toe to toe with Bond.  He was shorter by just a little, his hair making him seem taller.

“No, we’re not.  I kill things like you.”

“That’s speciesism.”  Q snorted, his breath blowing across Bond’s adam’s apple.  He poked Bond in the chest.  “And I’ll not have it.”

Bond planted his hands on his hips.  “Oh, really?  When does this binding end? Because when it does, I’ll kill you and it will be justified.”

“Will it?”  Q asked. He traced a finger against Bond’s lower lip.

“It’s what we’ve always done,” Bond said. He slapped at Q’s hand, except, rather than a sharp smack, his hand gently brushed and held Q’s hand rather than damaging it.  “This is going to get annoying.”

“I’m not annoyed.”  Q smiled as he entwined their fingers together and lowered them, resting their joined hands against Bond’s chest.

Bond glanced down at their hands, resting peacefully in between them.  Long, pale fingers, fragile-seeming, tucked amongst his broad, tanned, and calloused fingers.  Such a contradiction.

His eyes flitted around the office, where nothing of it was him except for what was in the battered box that he was normally very careful with.  Now, he was holding something else he couldn’t hurt.  He wondered very briefly if he could put Q in that box. That brought a smile to his face. 

“See,” Q said.  “You can do it.”

“Do what?” Bond whispered, trying to make his voice as soft as Q’s.  

“Touch without hurting.  It’s not so bad, is it?”  Q asked as he stroked the fingers of his free hand along Bonds arm before latching onto his shoulder.  He leaned up on tiptoe and pressed a kiss to the corner of Bond’s jaw, and Bond froze, allowing it, rather than withdrawing from it.  Another kiss to the cheek, light and firm, no hesitancy.  

Q’s lips skimmed along the flesh there, causing goosebumps to form behind Bond’s ears and down his neck.  He turned his head slightly as Q continued to move, exploring the texture of Bond’s cheek.  They met.  Lip to lip and nose to nose.  The touch was light.  Bond could have moved out of the way, that wouldn’t have harmed Q, but he was nothing if not...adventurous.

“I’ve had worse,” Bond finally whispered against Q’s mouth.  He caught the breath of Q’s laughter.  “Much worse.”

Q pulled back, his eyes glinting with unholy light in the dark.  “Anyways, I said I was here because you called for help and I answered.  I’m afraid your God wasn’t listening to you, or maybe he was, but I got here first.  I called dibs.  So, tell me about your problem.”

Bond sighed with exasperation as he stared down at this strange demon willing to help.  His eyebrows furrowed until they met in the middle.  “God is always listening; what he doesn’t always do is give you the answer you want.”

“Fair enough,” Q said, shrugging.  “We have our own harsh taskmaster.”

“I bet He gives you what you need.”

“And am I what you need?”  Q asked, miming shock.

A burst of laughter came bubbling up from Bond.  “I’ve had worse.”

Q’s fingertips drummed along Bond’s chest, reminding Bond that they were still holding hands.  Bond let them fall from where they were placed and their hands hung empty by their sides.  

A small smile picked up the corner of Bond’s mouth as he studied Q.  

“Why do I get the distinct feeling that you’ve just killed me in your mind?”  Q asked softly.  “Surely you can play well with others.”

Bond took the initiative to flick his own finger against the corner of Q’s mouth and then his chin.  “Others, not your kind,” Bond said, leaning forward until he was eye level with Q. “In fact, little demon, I’m here to kill one of your kind.  How can you possibly help with that?  Turn against one of your own?”  

Q stretched up on tiptoes to whisper into Bond’s ear.  “Hell is empty, and all the devils are here.”  


	6. Chapter 6

Bond’s gaze narrowed until they were sharply honed on Q.  “So I gather.  Look, this isn’t your little playground.”

“And you’re in the middle of a mission,”  Q said. He turned away from Bond and walked back to the desk, his hand waving in the air.  “Blah, blah, blah.  I get that, believe me, I get that.”  Q stopped behind the desk and dropped into the chair where he began to fiddle with the items again.  He picked up the bulldog and examined it.

“Put that down.”

Q ignored Bond, the bulldog still in his hands.  “Tell me, what do you see?”

Bond stalked forward and hissed through his teeth,  “I see a nosy, impertinent, young demon who doesn’t have two farthings to rub together inserting himself into my business, where he doesn’t belong.”  Bond snatched the bulldog from Q’s hands.  “I  _ said _ put that down.”

“That’s quite a powerful object,” Q said, his fingers twitching as if they wanted to pick the bulldog up again.  “All of these are.  You’ve never let go, have you.  A ship at anchor and tossed about in the eye of the storm.”  Q looked Bond up and down.   “A bloody big ship.  Hello, sailor.”

“Why you-”

“Also, I’m not so young but thank you for the compliment.  Now, let’s get down to the business I have impertinently inserted myself into,” Q said. He pushed his glasses up his nose again and motioned to the other side of the desk.  “Have a seat.”

“This is MY bloody office!”  Bond snarled as he leaned down until he was nose to nose with Q.  

“Then move me.”  Q stared at Bond, a single eyebrow raised as Bond grimaced.

“If I try to move you, I’ll probably end up in your lap,” Bond grumbled as he turned away.

A huff of laughter fell out of Q’s mouth.  “Oh,  _ that _ I would have killed to see.  I could still kill to see it?”  Q flashed a sharp grin.  “Anyone interesting on your list of things to kill?”

“You,” Bond answered as he stalked to the set of chairs that were for visitors in his office, not that he’d had many...at all.  

Q sighed.  “Shame really, I bet you have a nice bum.  Fair enough.  Now, about your problem with Vesper and with our binding.”

“Your binding,” Bond murmured.  “And yes, I do have quite a nice bum.”  

“Don’t tease,” Q sniffed. “Well, it’s our binding now, and since I’ve done it, I’m the only one that can release it.  Me and only me.  I’m quite territorial.”

“I entered into no bargain with you,” Bond said dryly as he crossed his legs.

Q shrugged.  “Technically no and technically yes.  Now as I keep repeating, you asked for help and I answered.  In order to help you, I bound you to me so you could do me no harm while I helped you.”  Q spread his hands and held them palms up; he moved them up and down like scales trying to balance themselves.  “I help you, no harm comes to me, and if I succeed…” Q’s hands evened out, “then I remove the binding and I disappear.”

Bond tilted his head, studying Q’s hands and silently pondering his words.  “But harm comes to me?”

“I hope not.  Although, I’ve never done this before.  Maybe I should add a protection spell along with the binding!”  Q wiggled his fingers and leaned forward.

Bond leaned backwards.  “I’d prefer that you don’t.  And again, why would you help me get rid of one of your own kind?”

“Well…” Q stopped wiggling his fingers and swiveled around in Bond’s office chair.  “Oh, that’s rather fun.”  Q spun himself around and around.

“Q.  Q.  Q!”  Bond raised his voice to get Q’s attention.

“Oh, yes...hmmm, what?”  Q brushed a hand back through his hair, making the curls stand out in every which way.

“Why.  Answer me or I’ll swear that you’ve helped me and I’ll prematurely end the binding,” Bond said, quickly thinking of a loophole.

Q snorted.  “Prematurely.  I’d like to see you try.”

“Stop avoiding the real questions and answer me!”

Q sighed, his shoulders drooped.  “She’s becoming rather quite a problem.”

Bond snorted.  “Tell me another one.”

“No, she is.  She’s been chewing through all the priests that have been sent here.  Warrior or otherwise.  Making a nuisance of herself, getting bolder by the minute, strutting around like a devil without a care.”

Bond snorted again.  “It’s generally what succubi do.”

“People are beginning to notice and we can’t have that.”

“No, of course not,” Bond murmured.  “So, how do you plan to kill her?”

“Well, that’s where you come in,” Q said, grinning at Bond, his dastardly fingers wiggling again.

“Me?  I thought you were here to help me?”  

“That would be cheating.  If I wanted to kill Vesper, I’d have done it already - ”

“You mean you can’t kill her.”

“Can’t, won’t, shouldn’t.  It’s not really in my jurisdiction.”  Q shrugged.  “We have demon rules we must abide by.  Something about how you can’t kill your sister demon or some such nonsense no matter how complicated they make your life.”

Bond uncrossed his feet and they landed with a thud.  He leaned forward and snarled.  “Sister?”

“Well...sort of.  Did I forget to mention that?  We’re all kind of related in some convoluted way.”  Q waved his hand carelessly through the air.  “Much like angels are all related in their own horrid way.  It’s still considered bad manners to kill your siblings.  I could be punished.  You wouldn’t want to see me punished, would you?”  Q lowered his eyes and bit his lower lip.

“I’d like to pull you over my knee and smack some sense into you,”  Bond growled.

Q’s head came up quickly...too quickly.  “Ooh, yes please!  And please be rough!”  He exclaimed eagerly.  He wiggled in Bond’s chair.

“Unbelievable and incorrigible.”   

Q’s husky laugh filled the air in between them as he swiveled himself in the chair again.

“So I’m saddled with a helpless demon who’s more into spankings than trying to help?”

“Wow, such faith.  No, I’m here to give you the tools to aid you in destroying Vesper.  You only know about this much of demon arts.” Q held his thumb and forefinger a small width apart.  “And size matters.  She would crush you like a bug under her hell heels.  Trust me, I’ve seen her play with her food.  Age is no guarantee of efficiency.”

“And youth is no guarantee of innovation, demon or not.”  Bond retorted.  He sat back and stared at his bookshelves, considering.  “I have no choice, do I?”

“Well, you could refuse my help; you could thank me but no thank me and I would remove the binding and let you handle whatever may come on your own.  Or you can stay bound to me, carry my protection-”

“You said you’d have to add protection.  What if I don’t want your protection?”  Bond asked.

“Safety first.”  Q explained.  “Under the rules of the binding, you fall under our general protection.  That can either be something I spell onto you or that could be you crying out my name.”  

Q coughed after his lame joke fell flat.  “You would call me to come to your aid.  You would literally have to say ‘help me, Q’ and I can’t really see you doing that.  So it should be something I spell onto you, shouldn’t it?”  Q wiggled his fingers again.

“Obviously.”  Bond looked at Q’s dancing fingers with some trepidation.  “There’s nothing...nefarious involved in that, is there?”

“Do you mean sexual?  Yes, of course!”  Q grinned.

“Why don’t I believe you?”  Bond asked, returning Q’s grin.

“What a shame,” Q said, winking at Bond.  He clapped his hands slowly three times.  “There, all done.”

“All done.  Just like that?”

“Like I said, you only know a fraction of demon arts.  While we’ve been sitting here talking, I’ve spelled your bulldog, lighter, and whiskey.  They’ll protect you.  Don’t even try the holy water, it won’t work where you’ll be going.  You’ll be too deep in for that.”

“And where will I be going?”  Bond asked.

“Hell,” Q said.

At that one word, the edges of Bond’s vision fuzzed out, the world turned black, the ground disappeared and he became deaf.  Sound came back to him with a harsh whoosh and the hard scraping of his feet stumbling upon the ground.

“Bugger,” Bond whispered to himself as he found himself in a long stone hallway.

“Look to the items.  Protection, desire, and destruction.  You have until the clock strikes the hours of dawn.  That’s all I can give you.” Q’s voice echoed in the hallway.   

“Why you- this isn’t a bloody Christmas Carol!  You’re not Dickens and I’m not some cranky old miser!”  Bond yelled into the empty air.  

“Expect the first ghost when the bell tolls one!”  Q’s voice rang out and then echoed down the long stone hallway.

“You bastard!”  Bond shouted one more time.  Q’s breathy laugh could be heard bouncing off the walls as Bond spun around.  Stuck in some part of Hell, with nothing but his bulldog, lighter, and whiskey to kill another demon that was not Q.  

“You wait till I get hold of you,”  Bond muttered before beginning the slow and laborious search for Vesper.

 


	7. Chapter 7

It wasn’t long before trouble found him in the labyrinth that was hell.  It came sniffing on his heels in the form of hounds, he had accidentally disturbed them.

 “Move, move, move!”  Bond hissed harshly to himself.  He could hear his ragged and uneven breathing echo through the dark hallway and the sounds of his feet hitting the ground as he ran and ran and ran, searching for light.  A sign of any way out.  This mission had gone wrong from the beginning.  Damn M for forcing this post on him and damn Q for dropping him in the middle of hell with three useless trinkets.  

 He skidded to a stop at the end of another never-ending hallway. Howling filled the air behind him.  His presence had been discovered.  It was time to find the way out.  “Where?  Where?”  Bond murmured once more, though no one answered.  “Fuck.”  The wretched howling continued, hellhounds on his scent.  

 “I will be released from this!”  Bond yelled out, though he wasn’t sure if he was raging at M, Q, or at what was to come.  

 He was fighting a battle on unfamiliar turf.  Now he was stuck trying to find a way out.  He had thought he would be  the one hunting and stalking Vesper, but she had known what her little demon brother had been up to.

“That bitch.  Damn Q and damn this last mission!”  Bond yelled into the dark corridor, lined with door after door after door.  Broken entrances and exits.  He skidded to a stop as the howling grew closer; his head slowly swiveled and his panting breath caught in the air as he silenced every noise his body was making aside from his rapid heartbeat.

Laughter.  The tinkling sound of feminine laughter that caught and transformed until it was turned into something darker and menacing.  

“That bitch!”  Bond snarled into the oncoming maelstrom.  “Make a choice.”  He slammed his bad shoulder against a door in his desperation.  It crashed open, dumping him unceremoniously on the ground.  

He rolled, his priest's cassock flaring around him as he came up on one knee, prepared to defend himself, if necessary.  He was unprepared for what he found, once he righted himself.

Vesper’s tinkling laughter filled the air and it turned something in Bond into ice and steel, caging him and making his jaw ache.  

“Well, well, well.  What has brother dear brought to me?  A gift, all nicely wrapped up, although doesn’t he know I could have had you at anytime?”  Vesper asked.  She was leaning against the dark wood of a four poster bed in the otherwise empty room.  She patted it, giving him a come hither stare.  “Come to me, darling.”

Bond rose slowly from where he landed, pushing himself laboriously up.  “No.”  He considered the weight of the three items given him and didn’t have a fucking clue as to which was which.  

He threw the bottle of whiskey at her, alcohol usually burned so maybe it was destruction.  He threw it fast and hard, but rather than it crashing into her, she caught it deftly with one hand and glanced at the label.

“A good year.  Wonder what it tastes like; does it taste like you?”  She ran her hand up the neck of the bottle, stroking it, before she twisted the cap off.  Her tongue flicked out and tasted the moisture at the opening.  

“Hmmm, I think it does.”  She took a swig, a second swig, and then downed the rest.  She threw the bottle back at him.  He ducked and it landed with a crash.  Glass shattered and spread along the floor.

Well, shit, that wasn’t destruction, although it was destroyed.  He took a step back and glass crunched under his feet.  Vesper smiled broadly.

“Come to me,”  she said, her voice taking on a soft husky tone.  “Come to me, come to me, come to me, and come for me.”  She spoke in a sing song voice as she raised a hand to him.  “I’ll let you do anything you want to me.  All of me, you can have all of me.  Whatever’s left, it’s yours.”

“What?” Bond asked; something wasn’t right, her eyes didn’t seem to focus on him.

“I’m yours, that’s what you’re here for, aren’t you?  To make me yours?” Vesper asked, her voice sounding hurt but why would that be?

“No,” Bond said, his voice ringing out across the room.  Denying her, denying him, although he didn’t feel anything, and he should have.  Part succubus, part demon, she would have been throwing every seduction charm at him, but he felt nothing.  He glanced down at the crunch his shoes made on the glass.  The whiskey must have been desire.  What the hell, why?  “I feel nothing for you.”

“Nothing?”  One of her elegantly shaped black eyebrows winged up and she slithered off the bed.  Slithered.  Off.  The.  Bed.  Bond’s eyes widened at the implication and narrowed as she transformed partially into a snake.  Her torso remained mostly human, but her legs lengthened to form the body and tail.

“Nothing?” Vesper hissed that word again.  Her tongue curled in the air, now split down the middle.  A viper’s tongue in a viper’s body.  “You come here to me and you say you feel nothing?”  

Her body lashed out at him. He jumped over her tail as she snapped it at him and lunged for the door, but she merely reversed her motion and wrapped her snake like body around him.  He gasped as she squeezed, crushing him.  

“AAAgh!”  he whooshed out.  God damned Q for not telling him which item held which spell!  “Ooof!”

Vesper laughed and squeezed him hard.  Something gave, he wasn’t sure if it was his body, he could hardly feel anything at this point, he was starting to see stars from having his air supply cut off, and that’s when he heard growling.  Shit, hell hounds; he was doomed now.  

And that was when the screaming started.  Except somehow, it wasn’t him screaming at having his flesh ripped from him.  His breath came back to him in a whoosh as he fell to the side, released from Vesper’s coils.  He saw more stars as the sweet oxygen of life fed him.  He flopped to the side, trying to find the source of the sound.

It was Vesper, who was screaming as several giant ceramic bulldog tore at her.  He glanced down as pushed himself up, feeling something fall away from him.  It was the pieces of the former M’s bulldog that had been left to him.  They were keeping Vesper distracted and at bay.  

Protection or destruction?  Bond watched, trying to decide which spell the bulldog contained.  He still had the lighter. If the bulldog was protection, the lighter was destruction and that meant while she was distracted...it was time to light her up.  The problem was getting off the ground.  Some of his ribs had given and those weren’t going to protect him like the bulldog had.

Bond closed his eyes.  “Okay, Q, give me something.”  He reached for the lighter still safely tucked away and came to an abrupt halt as his hand met something soft, not part of him, and distinctly NOT his lighter.

“I’ve got you,” Q’s distinctly soft voice whispered to him.  

Bond cracked his eyes open just barely and saw Q crouched over him, eyes lit by demon fire, making them a bright, unholy green.  His slightly pointed teeth were bared and a pair of black curved horns stuck out of his hair.  Gone were the deceptively soothing, comfortable grandpa clothing and in its place was a smooth suit, so black, Bond had a hard time focusing on the color.  

He looked like a wild thing ready to defend or attack, Bond wasn’t sure which.

Q glanced down at him.  “I told you, I protect what’s mine, and you...are mine!”

Bond dropped his head to the floor in relief; the thunk reverberated and began to hurt his brain.  “Was desire really necessary?”  Bond complained.

“I was hoping you’d save that one for me,” Q said, smiling down at him, “but as we are where we are, beggars can’t be choosers and it did give you a nice distraction.”

Bond lifted his head.  “Had I known what it was, I wouldn’t have used it as a nice distraction!”

“Is that whining I hear?” Q asked softly, his eyes still focused on Vesper and the multiple bulldogs.  She’d already taken out two but was being held back by five others.  “I’ll be with you in one moment.  Hold please.”

Bond swore a blue streak, as Q leapt up and into the fray.  That skinny little demon was going to get himself killed! Bond rolled over to witness his destruction, but instead, his jaw dropped as Q fluidly battled Vesper’s coils to get to her head.

“Traitor!”  Vesper hissed out. She flung her body out at a bulldog, crushing it against the wall.  She screamed as another tore a chunk of her scales out.  “Traitor!  Brother dear, if I die, you die!”

Q hissed. “You’ve betrayed us all!  Taken what isn’t yours, gone for too long without consequences.”

“You’ve no right!”  Vesper caught one of the ceramic dogs by its head and cracked its neck.  She threw the parts at Q as she swirled malevolently around the room.  “Your toys and tricks won’t help you now, brother dear.  You weak fool!”

“Moreso that you’re the fool.  As I said, you’ve gone unchecked for far too long and you haven’t paid attention to anything,” Q leapt onto Vesper’s body, they fell to the ground in a tangle.

“This weak fool has a brand new bag of tricks,” Q yelled.

“Fool you are, for a pretty face!”  Vesper screamed as she caught Bond’s eye from the far corner of the room.  “And fool you are, you’ll lose him!”  

Before Bond could get his feet under him or open the useless holy water Q had warned him about, the tip of Vesper’s tail lashed out and snapped him across the jaw.  He went down hard, more stars, blood in his mouth, completely stunned.  The battle between Q and Vesper raged around him.  Never more had he felt like an old, worn out relic of the past.  

But god damn it if he was going to let the junior team take all the victory out of this fight.  Bond reached a hand up to his mouth.  It came out slick with spit and blood.  Slowly, ever so slowly, he began to draw a complex symbol on the ground.  He prayed that no one would notice what he was doing and that it wouldn’t hurt Q...much.  

He added...one...last...thing, before he whispered the final words to activate the spell.  A sly grin spread across his face as he heard Q yell out in victory as Bond’s spell took hold of Vesper.  It was one of his most strongest and oldest spells he had learned.  She should be exorcised from the inside out, unable to maintain her form or any other from now on.  He released a sigh into the spit and blood strewn stone floor.

The room grew quiet, and somewhere through the fog of Bond’s mind, he heard footsteps approach.  He inhaled deeply and hoped that it was Q and not Vesper.  Delicate fingers probed and searched all along his scalp.  Another hand caught along his chest and pulled him around.  

Bond breathed out a sigh of relief.  It was Q.  There was a bit of demon blood spattered across one of his sharp cheekbones and a bit of demon gore dangling from one of his delicate black horns.  

“You’re a sight,” Bond said.  He cast an eye behind Q and saw the carnage that was left of Vesper.  “The bitch is dead?”  

“Quite, and you’re almost halfway to joining her,” Q said softly.  He shifted until he could pull Bond farther into his lap and cradle his head in the crook of his elbow.

“I thought I was under your protection.  Has the binding left?  At least I’ll die in a fight and not from doddering old age, sitting in my own filth,”  Bond coughed out.  

Q smiled.  “To die would be a great adventure, wouldn’t it.”

Bond squinted up at Q.  “Stop quoting literature at me.”

“My, my, we aren’t just a pretty face, are we?”  Q stroked the side of Bond’s face.  “You’ll live to die and fight another day.  We may meet again.  I’m going to miss you.”

“Where are you going?”  Bond asked.  He brought up his own hand and stroked the horn covered in the most gore.  He flicked the dangling snakeskin off.  

“Back to hell,” Q said, a small twist to his lips.

“Aren’t we already here?”

“Yes, well, it’s a big place and I have some reports to fill out.”

Bond chuckled.  “Hell is just as bureaucratic, isn’t it?”

“It is.  And you’re going back.”  Q bent down and brushed a sweet and slow kiss against Bond’s bloody and swollen lips.  His lips touched Bond’s as he continued to speak.  “I have fulfilled my part of the bargain, and now-”

“Wait!”  Bond interrupted Q, grabbing his shoulder.  “Don’t-”

“From my lips to your lips, freedom is now yours.”

Bond blinked up at a very familiar ceiling.  The ugly, dated light fixture of his office stared back at him.  “-go.”  For the first time in a long time, he felt just a little empty inside and it hurt.  At least whatever Q had done, his ribs and face didn’t hurt anymore.

“Well, I’ll have to go sometime.  I can’t live in your pocket, can I, although think how naughty that would be!”  

Bond froze and turned his head, and yes, sure enough, there was a naughty imp of a demon, dressed in grandfatherly clothes, sitting all prim and proper with his legs crossed, on the edge of Bond’s desk.

“I thought we were done.  That you had to return to hell?  Does something else need my attention?”

“Me.”

Bond let out a huff of laughter.  “You.  Cheeky little devil.”

Q’s grin lit up his eyes.  “Hell is rather boring, and you’re rather fun.”

Bond scraped himself off of the ground, his joints groaning in protest.  He stood all the way up and cracked a few vertebrae.  “So, now Hell is empty and all the devils are here...again?”

“So it would seem.  I have some time off coming to me and I think you’ve got some time off coming to you.”

Bond snorted and slowly approached Q, aware of the sharp little teeth.  “My time belongs to me.  I can take off whenever I want.”

“Possessive, I like it.”  Q smiled.

“More like mischievous and not well-behaved, but yes.  Possessive.”

Q held his hand out.  “Then I accept.”

Bond took Q’s hand in his, and with his index finger, drew a small sigil in Q’s palm. He leaned in and whispered words against Q’s lips,  “Tempus fugit et nos fugimus in illus.”

And the office was empty, no souls to speak of.  

Mrs McMurtry always wondered what happened to that nice young man with the pretty blue eyes.  His sudden disappearance was a mystery, but wasn’t their establishment known for that?  So she shrugged like everyone else and welcomed the next young thing to come and take up residence at _The Church of the Resurrection._

 

The.  End.   


End file.
